The event held at Civic Hall on Saturday was an evening of glitz, glam, dance, laughter and fun.

Ten much-loved and well-known Ballarat identities each performed a dance with their professional dancing partner before a final group dance.

Canberra Hotel owner Malcolm Roberts was announced as the winner of the judges award for best dance. In second place was blogger and photographer Liana Skewes and in third place was Clarke Clean owner Dylan Lesock.

Watch a video summary of the night below.

The people's choice award was announced to the dancer who raised the most funds. Buxton Ballarat co-director Mark Nunn raised more than $26,000 for the Ballarat Foundation.

The award for the second highest fundraising total went to Robyn Upton with more than $13,000 and in third place was Rosemary Aldrich with more than $11,000.

See our full gallery of photos here.

Celebrity dancer and City of Ballarat mayor Samantha McIntosh said Dancing With Our Stars and the three month fundraising campaign leading up to the event had raised the profile of the Ballarat Foundation.

"Many people along the way have been asking who is the Ballarat Foundation? Now everyone know what the Ballarat Foundation is," she said.

Ballarat Foundation chair Wayne Weaire spoke to 500 people in the crowd at Civic Hall on Saturday about the purpose of the foundation to unite community to break cycles of disadvantage.

See The Courier's full live coverage of Dancing With Our Stars here.

The four key pillars of the Ballarat Foundation are housing security, good security, youth success and school readiness.

The foundation runs the Ballarat Reads, L2P Learner Driver Mentor Program and Volunteering Ballarat, and also provides grants to other community organisations.

Ballarat Foundation chief executive Matt Jenkins said the organisation was grateful to the Ballarat community for supporting Dancing With Our Stars and helping the event exceed its $100,000 fundraising goal.

"We exist to connect people that care. Tonight just showed how many in our community care about making a positive difference across our region," he told The Courier, speaking at the close of the event.

"This fundraising is absolutely critical. So much of what we do relies on generous donations and events like this allow us to be able to cover off a lot of general administrative costs and keep the business running day in, day out. That means we can focus on the real impact areas, allowing us to make a real difference to our community."

See the full interview with Matt Jenkins after the event below.

Dancing With Our Stars participant George Fong said it was important attendees remembered while they enjoyed the glamour and glitz of the fundraising event, just metres down the road people were sleeping rough.

"There are kids who do not have enough for breakfast in the morning before they go to school and families struggling to see how they are going to deal with the next week rather than the next month," he said.

"This is why we are doing it and this is the reason behind these glamorous events. If we can raise money this will make a difference to a series of complex problems in this regional area relating to homelessness, obesity, disconnection and youth disengagement and a whole bunch of things we can work on with the help of fantastic organisations, underrated organisations like the Ballarat Foundation."

The Ballarat Foundation raised $55,000 for food security through the Feed Ballarat appeal, delivered 6000 books through the Ballarat Reads program and helped 38 drivers graduate from the L2P program in 2018.

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